‘Dixie’ Highway a tribute to America’s shame of slavery. Get rid of the name | Editorial
Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss is right: It’s past time to yank the South Dixie Highway name from one of the county’s most famous thoroughfares.
Confederate icons, and anything named Dixie, have been slowly erased by new, enlightened generations in the South and elsewhere.
Moss, the senior African-American commissioner, brought up the topic at a recent meeting, and faced no opposition from fellow commissioners or Mayor Carlos Gimenez. This week, Broward’s commission also voted to rename that county’s sections of Dixie Highway. Such two-county unity is good to see.
Moss wants the Dixie name removed from road signs across the county and replaced with the name of history’s most famous “conductor” for slaves escaping bondage in the South along the Underground Railroad — Harriet Tubman.
It’s possible that, down the road, Moss may face pushback, as some might suggest that local black leaders be considered for the honor. That’s a topic and a battle yet to come.
Miami-Dade is quietly jumping into the national debate over legacy tributes to the Confederacy, Civil War leaders, the pre-war South and slavery.
Moss plans an effort early next year with the county acting on its own to enact the same name change in areas where Miami-Dade has authority over the roadways carrying the Dixie name. The name appears on stretches of road from the north end of the county to Homestead. For Moss, first elected in 1993 and at the end of his commission career because of term limits, the eradication of the Dixie name might be one his biggest legacies, his game-changing vote in 1998 that made the county’s gay-rights ordinance the law among them.
In fact, it’s surprising the now-culturally insensitive name has lasted this long on the highway — and avoided serious controversy. Around us, other cities have dealt with the issue. In 2015, Riviera Beach renamed a stretch of Old Dixie Highway running through the city after President Obama.
In 2017, cities, including New Orleans, Baltimore and Charlottesville, saw waves of outrage that led to the removal of several Confederate memorials and statues.
And in 2018, the Florida Legislature approved replacing the statue of a Confederate general representing the state with that of black educator Mary McLeod Bethune in the U.S. Capitol.
The closest the controversy reached Miami-Dade was two years ago when the city of Hollywood in Broward changed the names of streets honoring Robert E. Lee and two other Confederate generals to Freedom Street, Freedom Drive and Hope Street.
The original 6,000-mile Dixie Highway connected Chicago with Miami and was used by Miami Beach pioneer Carl Fisher to get people to Florida in the 1910s.
Born a slave in Maryland around 1820, Tubman escaped to Pennsylvania in 1849 and then returned to the state more than a dozen times to help slaves escape through a network of safe houses and hideaways known as the Underground Railroad. She served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and one of her deployments brought her as far south as Florida. Tubman is a currently a popular figure. A film of her life, “Harriet,” was just nominated for an Oscar.
Her name in place of Dixie Highway would send a strong message, as could those of local or state leaders of wide renown. Erasing “Dixie” will never right a horrible wrong, but a new name will no longer celebrate America’s shame.